Executive Leadership

Peter G. Watson

President and Chief Executive Officer

Pete Watson has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Greif Inc., since November 1, 2015. Pete previously was Chief Operating Officer for Greif.
As CEO, Pete’s vision for Greif is … “In industrial packaging, be the best performing customer service company in the world”. This vision, together with developing a culture based on Servant Leadership, has been adopted by Greif’s 13,000 world-wide employees, and is propelling Greif to be a global leader in industrial packaging.
Since joining the company in 1999, Pete has served in a variety of executive positions, including Group President for Paper Packaging, Land Management, and Global Sourcing and Supply Chain. He also served as Division President of Paper Packaging, and President of CorrChoice (a Greif division), and Vice President of Corrugated Operations.
Pete holds a Masters and Bachelor’s degree from Springfield College in Massachusetts.
Pete serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Forest & Paper Association, is a member of the OhioHealth Board of Directors, a member of the Columbus Partnership, and the Ohio Business Roundtable. He is also serving as the Chair for the 2019 Central Ohio American Heart Association Heart Walk campaign.

Larry A. Hilsheimer

Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Larry joined Greif in May 2014 as Chief Financial Officer. As CFO, Larry has restructured the company’s financial operations crucial to the Greif’s transformation. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Scotts Miracle-Gro, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Vice Chairman and Regional Managing Partner for Deloitte & Touche USA, LLP. Larry holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University and a law degree from Capital University Law School. Larry serves on the Board of Directors of IBP (NYSE), on the audit committee of The Ohio State University and as a Board member of Battelle for Kids. He also sits on the Dean’s Advisory Council at Fisher College of Business and served as a Board member for The Ohio State University Alumni Association.

Gary R. Martz

Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

Gary is Greif’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary and joined the company in 2002 as its first in-house attorney. He is responsible for all aspects of Greif’s legal affairs worldwide, including corporate governance and compliance matters, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, litigation, patents and trademarks. He is also responsible for Greif Global Real Estate Services. Gary was formerly President of Soterra LLC, a Greif subsidiary, and served as Greif’s Chief Administrative Officer. Prior to joining Greif, Gary was a partner with the law firm of Baker & Hostetler LLP in Cleveland, Ohio. He received his Juris Doctor degree from The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law, and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toledo.

Doug Lingrel

Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer

Doug was named Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer in June 2016. Previously, Doug served as Greif’s Chief Information Officer and Vice President, Global Supply Chain Process and Administration. Doug joined Greif in March 1998 as part of the Sonoco Industrial Containers acquisition. His 28 years of leadership experience include roles in IT, sourcing and supply chain, finance and operations. Doug’s career highlights include: migrating IT to a business centric organization, partnering with businesses to design and launch supporting platforms, and creating IT architecture and standards. He also played a key leadership role in developing a global sourcing and supply organization. Doug holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Cincinnati.

Ole joined Greif in August 2015 as Vice President and Division President overseeing Greif’s Rigid Industrial Packaging & Services - North America business unit. In January 2016, he assumed additional responsibilities for Rigid Industrial Packaging & Services — Latin America and Container Life Cycle Management LLC, which operates the Greif’s North American reconditioning business. Prior to Greif, Ole served in various roles of increasing responsibility with Icopal a/s, a designer, manufacturer and installer of high end roofing solutions, including Managing Director in Denmark, Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the West European Region and Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Central European Region. Ole’s team-focus and results-driven leadership resulted in double-digit EBITDA growth for many of those organizations. A former military leader, Ole spent his early career as Managing Director at one of the world’s largest window companies. There he grew the United Kingdom business from its inception to a multi-million dollar operation.

Michael joined Greif in May 2015 as Senior Vice President and Group President, Rigid Industrial Packaging & Services – Europe, Middle East, and Africa. In January 2016, he assumed additional responsibility for Rigid Industrial Packaging & Services Asia Pacific, Greif Packaging Accessories and Global Key Accounts. After almost four decades in the packaging business, his industrial experience includes aluminum rolling, paper making and plastic extrusion, combined with a deep knowledge of complex downstream operations in flexible, rigid and paper board packaging. Michael has led and developed multi-cultural teams with 15 years’ experience at a CEO/President level. During a 12 year career with Rio Tinto Alcan, he gained significant experience acquiring and integrating businesses on an international scale as President of Flexible Packaging in Europe and Brazil. He has also served as President of SCA Packaging and Chief Executive Officer of Coveris Packaging. His marketing and accounting qualifications are the basis for a strong market focus to executing business strategy.

Hari Kumar

Vice President and Division President, Flexible Products & Services

Hari was named Vice President and Division President, Flexible Products & Services in May 2016 to help accelerate the business’ transformation strategy. Previously, Hari was Vice President, Transformation and Greif Business System; Vice President, Portfolio Optimization; Vice President of Flexible Products & Services with responsibility over the Asia Pacific region; and Director, Program Management for Flexible Products & Services. Prior to joining Greif, Hari was in the Global Mergers and Acquisitions practice at Deloitte Consulting and in the Business Development group at Eaton Corporation. Hari holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Cornell University.

Tim Bergwall

Vice President and Group President, Paper Packaging & Services and Soterra LLC

Tim was named Vice President and Group President, Paper Packaging & Services and Soterra LLC in June 2016, having previously served as Vice President and Group President, Paper Packaging & Services since January 2014, and President of Soterra LLC, a Greif subsidiary since May 2015. Prior to these roles, he served as Vice President, Containerboard Mills, where he led efforts to modernize Greif’s paper mills, adding over 100,000 tons of capacity and doubling operating profits. Tim’s career spans 29 years in the paper packaging industry, in management roles in both large integrated firms and smaller independent companies where he focused organizations on strategic growth initiatives. He is active in the industry and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Fibre Box Association, as the Chairman of the Containerboard Sector at the American Forest & Paper Association and is a member of the Paper & Packaging Board. Tim earned his bachelor’s degree from Miami University, and has attended graduate programs at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and The London Business School.

Matt Eichmann

Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

Matt joined Greif in November 2015 as Vice President, Investor Relations and in November 2016 assumed responsibility for Corporate Communications as well. Prior to Greif, he worked at Newmont Mining Corporation (NYSE:NEM) where he served as Director, Investor Relations and held various other corporate finance and leadership roles. Matt earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the US Naval Academy, and a master’s degree in finance and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Denver. He is a former U.S. Marine Corps artillery officer.

Bala V. Sathyanarayanan

Senior Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer

Prior to Greif, Bala served as Executive Vice President for Human Resources for North American Operations at the Xerox Corporation. Bala also led the human resource function for the Americas Enterprise Business at Hewlett-Packard Inc. and has had leadership roles at Avaya Inc., Polaris Software Inc., and Coca Cola Inc. Bala earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering and Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in General Management from the University of Madras in Chennai, India. He also holds an MBA in Human Resources from Rutgers University and graduated from the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

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